The Treasury Minister has revealed that more than £90m was spent to support unemployed people during the Covid pandemic but denies this has had a knock-on effect.

Concerns have been raised that without intervention the National Insurance (NI) Fund will run dry by 2047.

This prompted the government to propose ditching the triple lock for pensions and bringing in a double lock system.

The triple lock sees pensions rise in line with whichever is the highest out of inflation, a rise in average earnings or 2.5%.

The government planned to remove the average earnings element for anyone reaching state retirement age after 2019 and also reduce the 2.5% to 2%.

But pressure from House of Keys members forced Dr Allinson to withdraw plans to remove the triple lock from the Budget so it could be debated separately.

At Tuesday’s Keys sitting, Douglas Central MHK Chris Thomas asked Treasury Minister Dr Alex Allinson how much of the NI Fund was used for Covid-related salary support and earnings replacement schemes and whether it will be returned.

Dr Alex Allinson said the government operated two schemes to help people facing unemployment during the pandemic. These were the Manx Earnings Replacement Allowance (MERA) and the and the Salary Support Scheme (SSS) with both coming from the NI Fund.

In total the amount spent to fund these schemes was £90.6m which was split into £12.2m for MERA payments and £78.4m for SSS payments.

Dr Allinson explained: ‘Just like any other NI Funded benefit, there are no plans to return this money to the NI Fund. However, projections in this year’s budget shows that the fund continues to grow to £1.1bn.’

But Mr Thomas said £90.6m was a significant sum and the interest on that amount for three or four years ‘would easily have paid for triple lock changes’.

He went on to ask the minister if he agreed that ‘consequently many of the problems caused for the fund for future generations are actually as a consequence of money taken out of the fund’.

While accepting £90m is a lot of money, Dr Allinson said he could not agree with Mr Thomas’s ‘assumptions’.

He added: ‘The fund is there for a purpose and that purpose was used during the pandemic to support people who are unemployed and I would like to remind members the unemployment rate jumped to well over 1,000 very, very quickly during that period and people had to be supported properly to maintain their incomes.’

He also did not agree the £90m spent has caused problems and said that the value of the NI Fund in 2019-20 was £861m and £924.8m in 2020-21 so interest from the fund ensured the fund ‘did exactly what it was intended to do’.

The debate on the future uprating of the Manx state pension will now take place in April, after MHKs voted unanimously to split it away from the vote on the Budget.